Home and Garden Show offers inspiration and know-how

The talking points for this year’s Everett Home &Garden Show are engagement and entertainment.

The Everett Home &Garden Show is Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Comcast Arena.

Home show producer Jim Ashe really wants to go beyond the myriad booths and speakers that are standard fare at these types of events.

He wants visitors to be engaged and entertained.

To help do that, there’s a wine-tasting event Friday to kick off the show. Visitors will experience two showcase interactive exhibits that will give them landscaping ideas.

Throw in free parking and a daylight-saving time special (we spring forward Sunday) and this home show may have it all.

“What we are trying to do is engage the public,” Ashe said.

One of the biggest interactive exhibits this year is presented by Whispering Pines Custom Landscapes of Everett who have put together a 30- by 40-foot display that includes water features, stunning original artwork and hand-built rustic furniture.

With this exhibit, Ashe said, the home show gives visitors a large scale experience while also offering smaller, individual ideas that any homeowner can take on.

“There will be one or two people who will walk through and have the money to say, ‘I’ll buy it,’ but for you and me, we’ll walk through and we might see a nice little water feature and say, ‘That is something I can manage,’” Ashe said.

Another entertaining and engaging exhibit will be the one put on by the Washington Association of Landscape Professionals, who will have a terrific display set up on the concourse level, the area that circles the main arena.

WALP has had exhibits in the past where people have just stopped in their tracks and said, “Wow,” Ashe said.

In addition to booths and exhibits, the home show has a list of engaging speakers including Bob Barca, who has a garden in Freeland where he brings in plants from all over the world to see how they’ll grow.

“He’s into all kinds of exotic stuff,” Ashe said.

Barca will be speaking on “March Garden Activities,” “Growing Berries in the Northwest” and “Hummingbird &Butterfly Sanctuaries.”

Also speaking is Dave Pehling from the Washington State University Extension office who will talk about “The Dilemmas of Mole &Vole Management in the Garden.”

The WSU extension office also puts on a garden flower clinic every year where master gardeners will answer questions.

Also this year, the WSU extension will offer a rain garden clinic, Ashe said.

Another speaker is Erick Teegarden of Northwest Wind and Solar. Ashe said Teegarden knows his stuff about renewable energy and will talk on “The Many Benefits of Renewable Energy.”

Ashe said there’s not too much in the way of kids’ activities as the spring home show focuses more on the homeowners; there are more kid-friendly offerings at the fall show.

There will, however, be face-painting Saturday and Sunday.

New this year is free parking Saturday and Sunday at the Snohomish County garage.

And Sunday, that daylight-saving time special means visitors who arrive at Comcast between 10 and 11 a.m. will get in free. Of course, you’ll have to remember to set your clocks ahead an hour.